Unrequited Love
by regie27
Summary: A series of vignettes dedicated to explore the bitter subject of loving and not being loved in return.
1. Secret

**Unrequited love**

A series of RahXephon vignettes by regie27

Standard disclaimers apply

**Secret  
**Rating: PG-13

"Kamina…"

"Ayato…"

"…will you ever be able to feel the way I do?"

Hiroko watched Kamina with the corner of her eye, her stomach stirring with the proverbial butterflies and her breath caught in her throat, fearing that he might notice her intense stare upon him. Her fears were unfounded though, as he was complete wrapped up on the variety show they were both watching on the TV screen. An occasional chuckle would burst from his lips, making his face brighten with the most breathtaking smile she had ever seen. His eyes, deep blue as two small oceans, would suddenly twinkle and his whole face would lit up and she felt she wanted to bask in the warm, bright light his whole being seemed to emanate. A stray lock of hair felt over his brow and she could barely contain the impulse of pushing it aside just to have the chance to drown into his eyes again.

She shifted her left hand just a little, yet she could feel so clearly the presence of his hand beside hers, so close and inviting she felt her nerve endings of her hand tingle in anticipation. If only she could be bold enough to reach out and intertwine her fingers with his and feel the strong yet gentle pressure of his hand holding hers. If only she could be so bold and steal a kiss from those soft lips. If only...

He laughed again and she delighted in the childish expression his face took. The ring of his laughter had a wonderful lilt to it, so contagious she couldn't help but to laugh alongside him. Ayato glanced at her momentarily smiling, and she smiled back, wishing her smile could convey all the emotions his mere presence stirred inside her heart, but she was sure he didn't notice because his eyes fixated again on the TV screen and away from her. In the end, even with the time they have spent together and his gentle attentions, she knew he saw her as he had always did, knowing she couldn't aspire to be more than just Asahina to him. He would never say her first name like Mamoru did, with a longing that sometimes scared her in its intensity; he would never yearn for her like he did for Mishima Reika, for a ghost of a girl that none of them could be sure if she had ever existed. No, she was only Asahina, a friend, and he would never know how that the certainty that to him she was nothing more than a friend tore her heart inside out. And so another evening went by, her emotions kept locked up away from him, waiting for her to gather enough courage to let him know. She knew she couldn't stop the flood from spilling out from much longer.

"Kamina Ayato, one day, you will know."


	2. Longings

**Longings   
**Rated: R

_"Deep into a dying day  
I took a step outside an innocent heart  
Prepare to hate me fall when I may  
This night will hurt you like never before_

_Old loves they die hard  
Old lies they die harder"  
_  
I wish I had an angel, Nightwish

_Your hands roam my skin… _

Your fingers brush my abdomen and my tell-tale marking… 

Your warm lips cover mine…

Your feet run along my legs…

And I'm spiraling again into the insanity of a passion inflamed by jealousy, love and the longing that I can never push away.

  
Back then when we were both still young of age and heart, you came to me, wishing for me to fill the void of your solitude and ease the burden that oppressed your heart. You wanted me to help you heal you and yet I did just the opposite. The wounds that time couldn't heal ached and throbbed more with my mere presence. I played the role of the substitute and not even that I could do well because it was never enough to satisfy you or to make you forget him.

And now you've come back to me after I have again purposely wounded you. I just couldn't stand anymore how you kept pushing me away, rejecting everything I did because I wasn't needed anymore, because you had finally found him. I know that tonight I took away from you more than just a kiss; I took away your opportunity to recover what had been taken from you and I know you hate me for it. I admit it. I wanted you to suffer what I have since we met again but I now I realize I did more than push you to the corner I've been shoved to by your rejection. My kiss awoke sensations you had dulled in order to remain sane and faithful to his memory. I brought back memories of when you had sought in me solace and companionship, when you had awoke beside me. My kiss reminded you that you are human, that you are a red-blooded woman and you ache and feel and long for him just as I do for you. Back then, I had been the owner of your nights and your body yet I knew I deluded myself because I knew even when you were with me you were never really mine, but his, always his. When you caressed me, it was him you saw and not me, and yet I wasn't able to do anything but stay in your arms and play the game. You made love to a lost love through me and I made love to a lost cause.

I knew what I had done yet it was for me a surprise to see you at my door tonight, drenched by the midnight rain, eyes bloodshot and puffy by the endless tears. I stood still as you lifted your hand. I didn't flinch because I knew I deserved it but then it happened, the stinging of my cheek was suddenly replaced by the softness of your lips over mine.

I've possessed you, no, your body over and over yet you've been mocking me all this time, because I can see it all in your eyes. I can see that this is your revenge for what I did to you and it hurts more than anything else I've felt in my life, more than not being able to be chosen by Ixtli, more than the moment I knew Quon was going to leave me too. The message you've wanted to convey is clear. Your heart can never been swayed from the course that was predetermined years ago. Your soul and your love still belong to him after all this time and I can't do anything about it. I've been used all over again to dull the heartache and the void and the loneliness and I'm helpless to do anything to stop it because I too, wish to drown my sorrows in this haze of passion and delude myself in the illusion that I'm not just a substitute for you. I want to believe that you are finally able to see me and love me. I believed my own fantasy until you looked at me and I grimly remembered your eyes have always been brutally honest.

You're kissing me and the tears begin to fall down my face as my heart breaks…


	3. Longings, part II

**Longins, part II**

_Im going down so frail and cruel_

_Drunken disguise changes all the rules_

_Old loves they die hard_

_Old lies they die harder _

I wish I had an angel, Nightwish

_Was it revenge…?_

_Was it despair, or was it something else?_

_I dread to know the truth I'm forced to face._

As I open my eyes, I can sense my head spinning and swaying with a dull ache pooling at my temples. I'm hit with the sensorial input of unfamiliar surroundings but the slight movement beside me suddenly makes it all clear. I realize my discomfort is not the consequence of the lingering remains of the liquor I swallowed avidly in my futile attempt to drown my sorrows and my weakness. Drunkenness can be a very handy cope-out when you realize you have done something stupid but deep inside, I know my alcoholic stupor is not to blame for my actions. It is only I who carries the full responsibility of what happened last night after I drove Ayato home while coping with the cold timbre of his silence.

Was it frustration? Rage? Despair? I want to believe I did it because of one or all of those motives. Now, at morning, I feel the sunlight has brought warmth and cleansing light to the dark recesses of my soul. With a clearer mind and a somewhat more stable disposition, I find myself trying to recapture the emotions that fueled last night's spell of foolishness, but as I search my own feelings, I find more reasons, reasons that I would have thought dead and buried long ago. Of course, I wasn't the only one who, pushed by some unknown force, reacted in a matter most unexpected and acted out of pure instinct and emotion. In fact, none of this would have happened if Itsuki hadn't kissed me. It would have been just another conversation amongst old friends without any consequences. It would have been another ordinary day and no feelings would have been trampled upon, no wounds inflicted and no dreams would have bee shattered to the ground. But then he kissed me and the floodgates inside me opened wide.

What drove me to be so reckless last night? Did the alcohol stir to the surface what I have been zealously keeping in the dark? Was it the rage that surfaced uncontrollably? Was it the dread of having to face the end of the dream? The only thing I can recall clearly now is that after hours of emptying bottle after bottle of sake and running out of tears to shed, I decided I should let Itsuki have a piece of my mind for his reckless and thoughtless actions. I just wanted him to know how much he had wounded me make him as miserable as I was feeling. But then, out of my own volition as if another part of me had suddenly taken control, I kissed him. Perhaps, even more than the need of revenge, I craved what he had given me in the past: an instant of delusion. How many times in the complicity of the night I had made myself believe the one beside me was Ayato and not a look alike? How many times I stared to those blue eyes wishing it was _him_?

As Itsuki lead me inside, seeking shelter from the storm that drenched my clothes and from the one that tore me inside, I realized I was just like him. I was also condemned to love in silence without any hope. I could only watch from the distance as an outsider, as a witness. I understood then his fury, his frustration and I felt pity for him…and for myself. We are so similar he and I, both keeping our feelings bottled up, trying to act so calm when we are despairing deep inside. Yes, it was hopelessness, it was rage, but I now see that it was mostly out of compassion and my own need that I stayed the night because in his pain, I could see myself.

We are both destined to be infatuated with what we can't have but for a few moments, we attempted to cheat our predetermined fate and for one more time, were one in our shared delusion.


	4. Redblooded emotions

**Red-blooded emotions**  
PG-13

_"O god, O heart of god, death to thee for killing Hiroko!"_

The Obbrigatto rushes the clear blue sky, blue as the blood that runs through his Mulian veins, towards the true Xephon and the half-breed Instrumentalist who had been chosen despite his unworthiness to reach the ultimate honor: Yolteotl. The traitor had finally dared to shed his human trappings to become a god and he was going to be to challenge him. He was going to be there to avenge her death.

Light blue was the sky above and deep blue was the ocean beneath but he could only see the red of rage, red as the blood of the cursed humans who had condemned him and his people to a life of oblivion. The moment had finally arrived for the Mu to reclaim their true position but none of that really mattered to him, not without her at his side. The emptiness that sank him more and more into the pitch blackness of despair and the seething hatred that choked on his throat like bile could only be alleviated with the death of the one whose hands were still tainted in azure.

"She loved you" he mumbles between clenched teeth. "Hiroko loved you like she could never love me but now nothing matters anymore because she's dead and it was you who killed her!"

Mamoru shivers as his mind flashes through the blood-stained pages of her diary and the desperate, heart-wrenching confession they contained. His head throbs under the mask that joins him with the Obbrigatto and he can sense the stirrings of an incipient nausea at the pit of his stomach as he relives all over the instant his eyes found the desperate words she had jutted down the small notebook as the sole testimony of her feelings. The cerulean-tinted words that wounded him like a stake piercing his heart wide open had been the climax to the revelation that had been unveiled against his own will. Despite his hatred for humans, he had succumbed to emotions that had been alien and so...human-like to him until the day he found himself wishing Hiroko could look at him the same way she looked at Kamina. Each moment he caught her staring at the boy he had began to see less as the person he had to protect and more as a friend, the air around him became thinner and another emotion, one that slowly began to build inside him like the spark that grows into an uncontrollable fire, grew as deep as his affection for the girl and just as intense.

"Why couldn't you love me like you loved him? What did I had to do to win your affection?"

Moisture slips past his clenched jaw. His fingers wind up in a fist so tightly that drops of blood pool from his pierced palm fall to the floor. The discomfort pulls him out of his recollections, making him glance down. Upon the sight, sweat begins to profusely drench his forehead. The blood that poured down was not azure but crimson. _"The timbre that praises the color indigo is dull and stagnant. Hatred cloud's a person's timbre"_ Quon al Padis had commented to him. How deep and true her insight proved to be.

The form of the white true Xephon, floating aimlessly and defenseless is now at mere feet from his location. Only one concern, one purpose will quiet the disturbing and suffocating emotions that pull inside him. Only one thing will grant his heart peace. "Hiroko, today you will be avenged."

And with that single purpose, Shinon Meru Baramu, the Mulian who unwittingly became human, flies towards the human boy who unwittingly became a god.


End file.
